What is FIRE?

FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. It means building enough savings and investments so you can stop working for money earlier than the usual 58–60. “Retire” here often means quitting a full-time job, not necessarily doing nothing.

FIRE full form

FIRE = Financial Independence, Retire Early. The idea is to save and invest a large share of income so that your corpus can fund your expenses for life.

Types of FIRE

• Lean FIRE — lower expenses, smaller corpus (e.g. 25X–30X annual expenses in India).
• Regular FIRE — maintain current lifestyle (e.g. 33X–40X).
• Fat FIRE — higher spending, larger corpus (e.g. 45X–50X).
• Coast FIRE — corpus enough to grow to retirement need without more savings.
• Barista FIRE — part-time or lower-paid work to cover part of expenses.

FIRE number in India

Your “FIRE number” is the corpus you need. Indian planners often use 33X–40X annual expenses (not the US 25X) due to higher inflation. Use a FIRE calculator with Indian assumptions to get your target and years to reach it.